


The True Death-Temper

by SkyDether



Category: Constantine (TV), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), Hellblazer & Related Fandoms, Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Genre: American Civil War, American History, Environmentalism, Extinction, Frogs, Gen, Humor, Hunters & Hunting, Moby Dick References, Monster Hunters, Rating May Change, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, To Be Continued
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-15 22:22:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17537423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyDether/pseuds/SkyDether
Summary: John reads a book.The crew hunt a new enemy.“No, no—no water for that; I want it of the true death-temper. . . . What say ye, pagans! Will ye give me as much blood as will cover this barb?” holding it high up. A cluster of dark nods replied, Yes. Three punctures were made in the heathen flesh, and the White Whale’s barbs were then tempered."- from Moby Dick when Captain Ahab anointed the harpoons with blood.





	The True Death-Temper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ch. inspired by: "From Can to Can't" by Corey Taylor (Slipknot), Scott Reeder, Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick) & Dave Grohl
> 
> Under the water  
> It's cold and it's grey  
> My torrid autumn  
> Another season decays  
> Open up the Hollow
> 
> I know what's wrong  
> God, you complicated everything  
> I know you're wrong  
> God, you took it all away from me  
> I know you're gone, gone, gone  
> This is where I will cross my line

_A great geyser of thick, black, blood spat into the azure eye of God gazing upon the broken corpses of splinter and bone._  
_The crushed ship was dragged to the bottom of the crimson sea by the once indomitable white fiend._  
_The great fish swam into the endless embrace of the devil's dark, despairing, depths._  
_I alone was spared the creator's unmerciful cruel punishment._  
_Behold the Blood_

_This world shall never forget the heroes who here battled in the great war eternally surging between Nature, Man and Beast._  
_I pray thee heed my warning and steer your bow clear from the sins of squander and false idols._  
_It has fallen to me, the meekest amongst the truest and most tragic of Titans._  
_May my tale raise up the drowned legends from the drink._  
_Call me Ishmael._

John Constantine squinted in confusion.  
He paged back in the dusty book to the beginning of the story he had just read:

"Whale Tale"  
by Herman Mellville

 _Well that's bloody peculiar innit?_  
He rubbed the stubble on his jaw.

While John was sipping on a brandy in a comfy chair reading the classics, the rest of our time team was back in 1800's America. The time bureau had uncovered an anomaly which caused The Red Cross to entirely disappear. Losing the Red Cross had resulted in the lost lives of countless soldiers and victims of disasters. Clara Barton had become a wife and mother who never saw the bloody battlefields of the Civil War and therefore was never inspired the create The Red Cross.

Thanks to Gary Green's brilliant deductive investigation, the anomaly was traced to a group of time-ecco-terrorists who called themselves "The Cherry Coverts". The band of misguided hippie activists had managed to rally the people of Johnstown, PA to shore up the South Fork Dam. Due to their radical construction, the dam on Lake Conemaugh never failed and as result, the infamous Johnstown Flood never occurred. Thousands of lives were saved and a unique, doomed species known as the North American Turtle Frog was rescued from extinction.

Their reckless, misguided, good intentions had caused more death and destruction than the broken dam ever had. The tragic flood was the first disaster witnessed by the young Clara Barton and she found her true calling while providing aid for the victims. Gambling with fate is a dangerous game indeed and history is a sore loser.

Gary Green:  
**My job never ceases to amaze me!**  
**How could saving this little guy cause such horror?**  
He held out the slimey amphibian to the brave crew of the WR-2059.

Captain Sara Lance:  
**No way in Hell.**  
She held up her hands and turned to a view-screen.

Ray Palmer:  
**Aww, I'll take Mr. Phib!**  
**That's what I called my pet toad when I was a kid.**  
**Ya know, Mr. Pibb / amphibian?**  
**Get it?**  
A wide, goofy grin spread across his handsome face as he carefully took the burping beast and stroked its mucousy-membraned skin.

John and Charlie sighed and gave each other exhausted looks.

John Constantine:  
**Well, you lot have fun with your beastie genocide.**  
**I make it a rule to never get slime on my coat if I can avoid it.**  
Constantine turned and swaggered away.

_DOWN AT THE DAM . . ._

Mick Rory:  
**What happened to "reasoning" with them?**  
Rory smirked at the circle of bleeding hippies crawling in the mud around Captain Sara.

Zari and Charlie grimaced at the dirty mini-disaster scene and tried to keep their shoes clean.

Sara:  
**Have you ever tried talking to a hippie?**  
**Just help me chain them up to this tree.**

Random Muddy Hippies:  
**Hey look, it's more pig time-narcs come to crack our skulls.**  
**We'll peacefully resist your oppression as long as it takes!**  
**We love loving trees!**  
**Who do you think brought the chains of freedom?**  
**Save a bunch of blood thirsty soldiers and let the majestic North American Turtle Frog get annihilated?**  
**_NO WAY GO AWAY! - NO WAY GO AWAY!_**  
**_SAVE THE DAM!_**  
**_FROG LIVES MATTER!_**

The defeated, smelly, Cherry Coverts chanted as our valiant crew dragged them over to a large tree and chained them up to it. The ship wooshed away, leaving a storm of leaves and sticks swirling around the protesters. Rory manned a canon as Sara circled the time-ship around and flew low over the picturesque lake. He grinned and shot the tree down and then blasted the dam! It blew apart in a spectacular explosion and the mighty lake burst like a humongous water balloon and raged down on the sleeping little town.

As they watched the awesome spectacle of nature's destruction their giddy joy turned into somber reflection. Ray looked down at Mr. Phib and frowned as the amphibian faded away into history.

Ray:  
**I know what we did was the right thing but why does it always feel wrong?**  
**Just once it would be nice to feel good about what we're doing _while_ we're doing it.**

Sara hated to see her crew feeling down and cruised over the Atlantic Ocean for a while. She hoped the beautiful, natural view would cheer Ray up but he felt like he had lost his beloved childhood pet all over again.

Down on the water, she spotted a majestic sailing ship. It looked a lot like the toy ship Ray liked to play with in the tub.  
She flew down closer to it . . .

Sara:  
**Ray, honey! Look what I found!**  
He came to the window again and smiled at the old fishing vessel. Sara smiled at his face lighting up.

His eyes opened wide and his mouth gaped open in horror!  
The fishermen from the boat were attacking an enormous white whale!  
Tiny men savagely stabbed it with rusty harpoons.  
The sea turned red with its blood as it swam for its life!  
Then the legendary "Pequod" exploded into splinters and sank into the cold, dark ocean depths!  
The gigantic whale breached all the way to its tail and slammed down into the water.  
A tidal wave crashed into the timeship and the beast sped away from the things of man.

Ray and Sara spun around to see Charlie at the canon.  
She smiled and held up her thumb.  
**Score one for the beasties!**

Nate Heywood:  
**What did Constantine do now?**  
His exasperated face demanded from the waverider's largest view-screen.

Zari:  
**What do you mean?**  
**We blew up the damn dam damnit.**  
**Didn't the Red Cross come back?**  
She looked at the history line on a monitor.

Nate:  
**Yes, but now the United States has been divided into The Confederated States of the South and The Northern Unity of Freedom.**  
**Also known as The Righteous South and The Northern Lights.**  
**The Civil War never ended!**  
**Just fix it!**  
Nate snapped off his monitor.

Zari found John dozing in the library, wearing only his gross, worn, red robe with a drink dangling from his hand. She kicked his pale, bare feet off of the ottoman. His drink shattered on the ground and John tumbled to the floor. He rolled onto his back with a fireball blazing from his fist.  
**Blast it woman!**  
**Never startle a sleeping magician!**  
**I could have sent you to hell!**

Zari:  
**In your dreams.**  
**Never mind that, what did you do out there?**

John:  
**Me? I've been 'ere the whole time.**  
**Why do I always get the blame?**  
**Honestly, every time the toast gets burnt you come running to me!**  
**By my count, you lot have screwed up a hell of lot more than I ever have.**  
**Wait, what are you talking about?**

The crew, minus Rory and Charlie, searched for the cause of their latest foul-up. After hours of combing through the time-line, John's eyes burned and he took a break for a cig and a drink. He went back to the library and flopped down in the chair. He looked down at the magic book he had nicked from Rory and turned back to "Whale Tale" again. . .

Old ConMan:  
**You're not hearing me.**  
**Moby Dick didn't die.**  
**He's supposed to die with Ahab, remember?**  
**It's only the whole point of the book!**

Zari:  
**Well that's nice that the whale was saved.**  
**But I don't see how this minor change could have caused a shift of this magnitude.**  
**I mean, it's just some stupid story about a nut.**

Incredulous Old Man:  
**Just a story? . . .**  
**No wait, I read it in here.**  
**It must be based in reality.**  
**Well, A reality anyway.**  
He held up the dusty book.

Mick Rory:  
**My book!**  
**I knew you stole it you limey thief!**

Mick lunged at John who slid out of the way and slammed the book down on the charging attacker's head. Rory leapt to his feet and cocked a massive fist!

Captain Sara:  
**Enough!**  
**Maybe you old farts don't have lives but I do!**  
**Ava and I are supposed to go away for the weekend.**  
**We are going to fix this now!**

With the new focus, the team discovered that Ulysses S. Grant did not fight in the Civil War. He was not there to help Abraham Lincoln win the war and therefore the country remained divided. The North and South never stopped warring and the United States never became the super-power it was destined to be.

In the new time-line Grant died as a young man while traveling aboard a ship. He had a promising but short military career when his transport ship was attacked and sunk by a large, white sea creature. This mysterious creature was responsible for the wrecks of many ships and all attempts at hunting the menace had ended in tragic failure.

It was during this time that Herman Mellville, a moderately successful writer, came into possession of the "Tagumo" magical book. He was divinely inspired by the legendary creature and penned the iconic masterpiece within its pages.

Ray:  
**Okay, so why is this important?**  
He turned to John.

ConMan:  
**Oh, suddenly the old man with the dusty tome isn't quite so obsolete is he?**  
He said with a cocky smirk.

Everyone else:  
**What?**  
They stared blankly at our cuddly, curmudgeonly hero.

Constantine:  
**We have to fix the ending.**  
**What do you say pagans?**  
**Will you look into the fire with me?**  
**Wander out of the way of understanding?**  
His gorgeous blue eyes twinkled with adventure.

They stared blankly at our cuddly, curmudgeonly hero.

Constantine:  
**Nothing?**  
**You nippers really ought to open one of those books some time.**  
He shook his head and pointed at the beautiful library.

Sara:  
**You know, in all the time I've been aboard this ship, I think you are the only person to ever actually read anything in there.**

Constantine:  
**Well, now's not the time.**  
**We have a monster to slay!**  
**Death to Moby Dick!**  
He held up his fist.  
Our heroic hunters gathered in a circle and held up their fists.

_**DEATH TO MOBY DICK!!** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the opening passage sounds like Mellville, it was fun to write anyway.
> 
> I recently became a little obsessed with Moby Dick (though I confess I still have not read it.) I watched several versions, listened to some of an audiobook and read a lot of quotes. It really does get its hooks into you, lol.
> 
> It all started with another of my Ethan Hawke kicks (wow does he look delicious as the swashbuckling Starbuck). Anyway, I couldn't stop thinking about the white menace. Charlie Cox (DareDevil) is great as Ishmael too. I just love adventure stories about men on the high seas (The Terror!) I need to put John in pirate clothes.
> 
> I just love John's obsession with dusty, crusty old books.  
> The sexiest curmudgeon ever.
> 
> The harpoon blood ritual and St. Elmo's Fire needs Constantine.
> 
> When I wrote "behold the blood". I was like - wow that has to mean something.  
> So I looked it up. I think it's just a natural phrase or it was somewhere in my lizard brain?  
> It could have been in True Blood or the billions of vampire movies, shows, books and games I've consumed, (even a LARP!) who knows.


End file.
